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Monday, December 23, 2013

The main course was Christmas bone-in ham, which I ordered from supermarket. All I need to do back home is to reheat in the oven and add some simple garnishing:

I like to include a variety of hot and cold side dishes for the party. Where possible, try to include a few dishes where you can prepare in advanced, and just put together before the party. For instance, the drunken chicken was done a day ahead (soaked in rose wine broth), sliced and arranged just minutes before the party. The century egg tofu was prepared in the morning and kept chilled in the fridge.

Nicoise Salad with Lemon Garlic Light Vinaigrette Dressing

Herbal Drunken Chicken

Chilled Century Egg Tofu

Roasted Pumpkin with Pomegranate

Otah Samosa

I love to include a colourful dessert for party. It is visually pleasing and serves as a lovely centrepiece for the party. For this purpose, I made the Mixed Berries Baked Mango Cheese Tart. The tart base is digestive biscuit crumbs and mango cheesecake, baked and chilled, before garnished with assorted fresh berries. To add to the festive mood, I have also made a ice cream log cake.

Mixed Berries Baked Mango Cheese Tart

Green Tea & Red Bean Ice Cream Log Cake

With a little planning ahead and some helping hands, you can also enjoy a sumptuous Christmas lunch at the comfort of your home.

Wishing all a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Monday, October 28, 2013

I'm back, after missing in action for almost a month. I caught the exam bug, or rather the mom's exam bug. Now that exam is finally over, it's time again for some baking.

I really love this Pink Ombre Barbie Doll cake. It is decorated using a simple swirl design, but I think the result is fabulous! Thanks to my neighbour, Mag for giving me this great idea! The cake is a chocolate sponge base, filled with alternate layers of dark chocolate cream and homemade raspberries cream.

It is my first attempt with mixed nuts mooncake. Compared with other mooncakes, Mixed nuts mooncake is the healthiest of all. Each mooncake is loaded with nuts and dried fruits. It is almost like eating a muesli bar!

I adapted this mixed nuts mooncake recipe from Aunty Yochana. I did not measure to the dot for the amount of nuts/seeds/fruits used. But roughly, I kept to around 80g to 100g for each nuts/seeds/dried fruits(or combined ingredients; for instance, I used about 50g of cranberries plus 50g Medjool dates (since both ingredients are quite sweet). I have also pre-toasted the nuts and seeds first. Basically, what you need to do is to mix all the ingredients and seasoning together to form balls of filling for the mooncake. Then, you will wrap the filling with the mooncake pastry skin. The pastry skin and method is the same for making traditional lotus paste mooncake.

Another new attempt is the Teochew's spiral yam paste mooncake. I am not completely satisfied with my spiral mooncakes, so I will not be sharing the recipe for this. The problem I had is: they tasted great when they were freshly baked or deep fried. The crispy skin combines beautifully with the soft and melt in the mouth yam paste filling. But, the goodness have a "too-short" expiry date .... after a few hours, the fried ones would lose the crispiness and tasted oily instead. The baked ones remain good for only 1 to 2 days. I suspect I did not cook the yam paste long enough. Shall try again next round. Any tips from experts?

Friday, September 6, 2013

For many years, Teachers' Day falls yearly on 1 September and the occasion is usually celebrated in schools a day ahead. In the recent years however, Teachers' Day has been changed to the first Friday of September (which fits in nicely with the one week September school holiday). To show our appreciation, I baked some cookies lollies for my little girl's teachers.

Cookie lollies for the teachers

My initial plan is simple: bake some cookies, stick on the edible image, wrap and done. That will not take me more than half a day to do it.... I thought ^_^ My little girl suggested to use some hundreds and thousands sprinkles to decorate the cookies. Little children loves these colourful sprinkles. Why not .... so I piped a white icing border and sprinkle them over the wet icing to set.

The back of the cookies were decorated with a simple laced pattern

After completing the icing border, I still have a bagful of icing... such a waste to throw it away. And so, I started to decorate the back of the cookies with simple white stripes. It gives a lovely lacy feel to the cookies. From the side view, it looks as if the cookie is sandwiched between two layers of icing. Nice!

This bouquet of cookies is for the preschool teachers.

I had some soft wrapping paper at home, so I arranged a few lollies together to form a cookie bouquet. I hope her teachers will like the cookie lollipops and bouquet that I made for them.

2) Wrap dough with clingwrap and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

3) Roll the dough between two pieces of baking paper and cut cookies to desired shapes. As this dough is rather sticky, do dust your work surface, rolling pin and cookie cutter with some flour. If the dough gets too soft to handle, just pop them back to the freezer for a few minutes to harden.

4) Bake the cookies in a preheated oven of 180C for about 20 minutes. Cool completely before decoration.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

If you are a fan of citrus lemony desserts, you will fall in love with this tart. Crispy biscuit crust with a soft, creamy and tangy filling. Simply irresistible!

Recipe

(8" tart pan, loose bottomed)

Crust

170g plain flour

30 icing sugar

90g salted butter (add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter)

1 egg yolk + 2 to 3 tbsp water

Filling

150g mascarpone cheese

100g fine sugar

2 medium-sized eggs + 2 egg yolks

Juice and zest from 2 lemons (about 1/2 cup)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp corn flour

Method

1) Crust: Combine plain flour, icing sugar together. Using your finger tips, rub in the butter till it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add in the egg yolk mixture to form a dough. Wrap the dough with clear plastic cling wrap and keep in the fridge for about 30 to 45 minutes to firm up.

2) Place the dough on a sheet of baking paper and cover the top with a piece of cling wrap. Roll out the dough to a thin disc (big enough to cover the tart pan) and carefully transfer the disc to the tart pan (The way I do is to slide a thin cookie sheet or metal sheet below the dough disc. Place the the tart pan (inverted) on the dough directly. Then flip it around. Fast and easy!).

3) Blind bake the dough in a preheated oven of 190C for about 10 minutes. Remove baking paper, weights etc and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, till the crust turns light golden brown. Remove the crust and adjust the oven temperature to 150C.

4) Fillings: While the crust is baking in the oven, beat the mascarpone cheese and sugar together till creamy. Add in the eggs, lemon juice & zest, vanilla extract. Beat to combine and add in the corn flour. The fillings looks a little watery, but it will set after baking.

5) Pour the filling into the baked crust and carefully transfer the tart back to the oven. Continue to bake for about 40 minutes till the filling set.

6) Remove from oven and cool completely before removing the tart from the tart pan. Dust with icing sugar.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

This pumpkin kueh makes a delightful afternoon tea snack. It takes only a few ingredients and a few simple steps to prepare this tasty snack. The desiccated coconut adds a mild coconut fragrance to the kueh. Try it!

1) Steam and mash the pumpkin. While the mashed pumpkin is still hot, place it in a deep bowl, together with the glutinous rice flour, plain flour, icing sugar and dessicated coconut to form a soft, non-sticky dough (if dough is still wet, add another tbsp of plain flour).

2) Divide the dough into 8 portions. Dust your hands with some flour and shape each portion into a round patty.

3) Coat each pumpkin patty with sesame seeds and flatten it with your palm while gently pressing the sesame seeds onto the pumpkin patty.

4) Heat up a non-stick pan and add a teaspoon of oil. Pan fry the pumpkin kueh on both sides over medium heat till light golden brown.

I adapted the dough recipe from my earlier soon kueh recipe for making this kueh. Same amount of flour used, add in 100g mashed pumpkin and reduce hot boiling water to 550ml. To ensure that the dough is not too wet & sticky (since the mashed pumpkin may contain too much moisture during steaming), add in 500ml boiling water first, then gradually add in the remaining water to form a dough (may not use all the water). The method is the same as the soon kueh. As for the fillings, I have used garlic chives (韭菜), shredded pumpkin, fried tofu, fried egg, dried shrimps and minced ginger.

Friday, August 30, 2013

I hardly cook beef at home, but this week we had beef twice. I wanted to prepare beef brisket soup, so while shopping for beef brisket, I also bought some ground beef. My initial plan is to make some beef patties for burgers ... I even bought my burger buns! Well.... but somehow, I ended up making egg and luncheon meat burgers for breakfast instead!

As I picked up some fresh vegetables from the wet market, I spotted a basket full of lemongrass and an idea came to my mind - beef kebab on sticks! The lemongrass infused a lovely favour to the beef kebabs and my kitchen smells wonderful during cooking ^_^ Beside adding flavour, the lemongrass drumsticks are also visually attractive and helps to whet one's appetite. For dinner, I prepared a light Basmati rice salad to pair with the beef kebabs. If you do not have Basmati rice, you could use Thai jasmine rice. But Basmati rice gives a lighter and fluffier texture, which goes very well as a salad.

Colourful Basmati Rice Salad

I had cucumber, tomato, onion, yellow zucchini, ladies finger, dried cranberries in the salad rice. You can also use corn niblets, bell peppers, mushroom etc, I just use what's available in the fridge. The key point is: choose a variety of colours from your available vegetables. It's also a great way to clear leftovers since you need just a little of each vegetables for this rice salad.

One dish meal using Happycall Pan

As you can see here, I used my Happycall pan (HCP) to cook this meal. Key points to note when cooking the beef kebabs:

1) Heat the HCP till smoking hot. Add a little oil (about a tbsp) into the pan. Arrange the beef kebabs into the HCP. Keep the lid open, DO NOT close the lid (see pic below).

2) After one minute, rotate each kebab slightly to brown on another side. Keep rotating the kebabs till you brown them evenly (You need to brown the beef to seal in the juice, else you will end up with dried beef). Browning will take a few minutes.

3) After the beef kebabs are browned, close the lid (but do not lock it) and cook for another minute or two. This will ensure that the centre of the kebab is also cooked.

Browning the beef kebabs

For the Beef Kebabs:

(serves 3)

300g ground beef

2 tbsp chopped onion

2 cloves garlic

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger

1 stalk of lemongrass (head portion only)

1 tbsp cream corn (optional)*

1 tbsp chopped luncheon meat/ham (optional)*

2 tbsp chopped spring onion

1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I used leftover sandwich bread)

1/2 egg, beaten

Seasoning:

1 tsp garam masala spice mix

1/2 tsp paprika

1 - 2 tbsp tomato sauce/ketchup

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 to 2 tbsp stock (with little or no salt)

1 to 2 tbsp oil (if the beef is lean)

1 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

5 to 6 stalks of lemongrass (the thinner tail end) - remove the outer dry layers and lightly crushed one end for each stalk.

* I happened to have these in the fridge, so I added for extra flavour.

2) Mix all the ingredients and seasoning together. Keep in fridge for an hour.

3) Divide the beef into 5 or 6 portions. Take a stalk of lemongrass and wrap it with the beef. Use a clear plastic bag to help to roll and shape the beef onto the lemongrass.

4) Heat up the HCP (or any frying pan) on high heat till smoking hot. Add a little oil. Brown the beef kebabs evenly, before closing the lid (or covering the pan) for a minute to two for thorough cooking (see tips above).

5) Serve the kebabs on the Basmatic Rice Salad (recipe below) and garnish with tomato slices. Add some lime wedges at the side to squeeze over the kebabs.

For the Basmati Rice Salad:

(serves 3)

You will need:

1 cup of Basmati rice, washed and drained

1.5 cups stock (or water)

1/2 onion, chopped

1 small piece of cinnamon stick (about a inch)

1 star anise

Salad: choose a variety of vegetables. Over here, I used one tomato, 1/3 of a medium-sized yellow zucchini, a few ladies finger, one cucumber, handful of dried cranberries and a bunch of Chinese parsley. Cut the vegetables into small cubes (remove and discard the seeds - tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini).

Method:

1) Stir fry the vegetables lightly over a hot pan and season with salt/pepper to taste. You can use a HCP to do the stir-frying, but I prefer to use a regular pan as I can easily toss the vegetable around. Set aside.

2) To cook the rice, you can use either a rice cooker, a pot over stove or the HCP. Over here, I use the HCP: Heat up the HCP over medium low heat. Add a tablespoon of oil and fry the chopped onion till translucent. Add the rice, cinnamon stick, star anise and stock/water. Close the lid (locked) and cook the rice till the grains have fully absorbed all the liquid. The rice will take around 10 minutes to cook.

Note: To ensure even cooking, shift the pan to the left and right during cooking. After the liquid is fully absorbed into the grains, test a few grains to see if the rice is cooked to the right texture. If necessary, add a little more water, close the lid to cook for another minute to two.

3) Lightly fluff the rice with a fork (the Basmati rice will fluff up easily) and mix in the vegetables and dried cranberries. Close the lid again and let the rice stand in the pan for another few minutes.

4) Garnish the rice with sliced tomato and chopped parsley.

To complete my meal, I prepared lemongrass and ginger drink. I used the tail end portion for the kebabs and reserved the head portion for making this drink.

To make the drink:

4 to 5 stalks of lemongrass (head portion only) - crushed

2 to 3 thin slices of ginger

About 1 litre water

Brown rock sugar, to taste

Juice from 1/2 lemon (add after cooking)

Combine all the ingredients in a pot (except for lemon juice), bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Cool the drink slightly and add in the lemon juice. Serve hot or cold.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Recently, I have been baking chiffon cakes using the cooked dough method. I find this method more manageable and gives a higher success rate in achieving a nice and soft texture. The cooked dough method is similar to traditional chiffon cake method, except that you first cooked the flour in warm melted butter/oil/milk, cool slightly before you fold in the whisked egg whites or meringue.

Black Sesame Chiffon and Pandan Chiffon, both using cooked dough method (pictures taken with mobile camera)

Usually, I do not add baking powder for chiffon cakes. The air in the meringue is sufficient to yield a soft and silky smooth cake. But for this durian chiffon cake, I added 1/4 tsp baking powder as I had 100g durian puree added to this cake.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

I bought a Happycall Pan (HCP) recently. Just the basic slim version. Within a few weeks, I have used the pan to cook a variety of dishes and was quite impressed with it. The non-stick HCP makes cooking a breeze - no worries of food sticking at the bottom, and the silicon-sealed edge really helps to speed up cooking.

Last night, I used the pan to try another dish that I have not cooked for a long time - Seafood Paella 《海鲜烩饭》. My seafood paella may not be the authentic version - as there is no saffron in it, I used the Chinese long grain rice instead of the short grain rice used for making paella, and I used a HCP instead of the flat paella pan. But all these do not matter, cos the paella is so delicious! Every grain of rice is perfectly cooked and flavourful, and the seafood retains the freshness and moisture.

Here are the ingredients that I used for the paella:

(serves 3)

5 medium-sized prawns

2 large scallops, sliced into half horizontally

1 piece of fish fillets, cut into bite-sized portion

1 handful of baby squids, or 1 big squid

1/2 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 tomato, cut into small cubes

1/2 bell pepper (I used 2 baby bell peppers instead)

1/2 cup green peas

1 cup of white rice, plus a handful more

1.5 cups of stock (may not used up all the stock)

2 to 3 tbsp thick tomato paste*

Salt/pepper to taste

Garnish:

1/2 lemon, cut into wedges

Red chilli

Chopped dill

* I precooked my tomato paste using garlic, onion, tomato puree, streaky bacon, sun-dried tomatoes and dried herbs. Stir fry the ingredients in a pan till aromatic, add some water and simmer till thickened. Alternatively, you can use canned tomato paste or tomato puree to cook the rice (but do not use tomato ketchup sauce as the taste is different).

Ingredients for cooking paella

Prepare the seafood:

1) Wash and pat dry the prawns on kitchen paper. Rub a pinch of salt all over the prawns. Heat up the HCP over medium heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil into the pan. When the pan is hot, add in the prawns and grill on both sides till the prawns turn light pinkish in colour. Remove and set aside.

2) Marinate the fish slices, scallops and squids with a small pinch of salt, pepper and 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Set aside.

Rice:

Wash the rice and drain in a sieve. Previously, I soaked the rice briefly before cooking in the HCP as I was worried that the rice may not be cooked thoroughly. But I found that soaking is not necessary with a HCP.

Stock for the paella:

You can use either packet stock or homemade stock. I made a simple homemade stock from ginger, garlic and prawn shells. Heat up a stockpot over high heat, add in some oil and stir fry some prawn shells till aromatic. Add in ginger slices and garlic. Lastly pour in water, bring to boil and simmer on medium low heat for about 20 minutes. Leftover stock can be stored in the freezer for future use.

Method:

1) After grilling the prawns (and set aside), add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil into the pan. As the pan was already heated up while grilling the prawns, you can now add the chopped onion to the pan and stir fry lightly. Add in the chopped celery, tomatoes and stir well to combine.

2) Stir in the rice and tomato paste. Add the stock and salt/pepper (to taste). I will pour 3/4 of the stock first, stir and gradually add the remaining when the rice has fully absorbed the liquid and still looks dry. This prevents adding too much liquid which cause the rice to be too soft or soggy. Close the lid and simmer on medium-low heat for a few minutes (around 4 to 6 minutes). After 5 minutes, open the lid and check the rice to see if you need to add the remaining stock.

3) When the rice has absorbed the stock (still wet at the bottom of the pan), add in the marinated fish, scallops and squids. Close the lid and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.

4) Open the lid and arrange the grilled prawns, bell peppers into the pan. Lastly, add in the green peas (just sprinkle over randomly). Close the lid and cook for another minute and turn off the heat. Keep the lid on for another 3 to 5 minutes.

5) Garnish the paella with lemon wedges, chopped dill and chilli. Squeeze the lemon juice over the rice and enjoy!

Monday, August 19, 2013

This barbie doll cake is for my friend's lovely little girl, Livni, who celebrated her 6th birthday last week. Livni wanted a Princess cake, a pink Barbie Doll Princess cake, to be exact.

I made a few Barbie cakes previously: My first princess cake was a butter cake covered with fondant. My 2nd attempt - a Licca-chan doll cake, made with sponge cake and covered with light purple-based whipped cream - that's my "homework" for the cake decorating class. Last year, I made a Cinderella Fondant cake for my neighbour. This time, it is a soft and spongy vanilla cake with vanilla cream filling, and decorated with non-dairy whipped cream.

Presenting my lovely Princesses:

Princess cakes with fondant covering

Princess cakes with whipped cream covering

Preparation work for this Barbie cake:

3 to 4 sponge cakes* (I had three 8 inch and one 6" cakes) - sliced into 2 or 3 layers per cake and filled with desired fillings.

Stack the cakes together (the sponge cakes are light and airy, so even if you stacked a few cakes together, you do not need to insert any straws or support pillars).

Trim the cake to a dome shape.

Cut a small hole in the centre of the cake to fit in the doll.

Spread a thin layer of whipped cream and smooth out the cream evenly. The cake is now ready for decoration.

* Bake the sponge cakes a day ahead. The cakes are easier to handle compared to cakes freshly baked in the day.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Sunday is the perfect day to laze around in bed and enjoy a late hearty breakfast or brunch. Nevertheless, my internal alarm clock woke me up early at 6 am this morning. After finished making my Tiramisu cake (for a birthday celebration later in the evening) and kept away in the fridge, I quickly gathered a few ingredients to prepare my weekend breakfast.

My breakfast menu consists pan-baked scalloped potatoes (a light and healthy version), sausages, baked beans, pan-roasted tomatoes and some blanched pea shoots. The portion is enough to serve 4 to 5 persons. I used a Happycall pan to cook, and preparation cum cooking took around 25 to 30 minutes. Alternatively, you can bake the scalloped potatoes in the oven, while pan-fry the sausages and tomatoes on stove.

My hearty weekend breakfast

You will need:

(serves 4 to 5)

8 sausages

4 tomatoes, cut into halves (sprinkle a little salt on top of the cut surface)

1) Gently cook the baby potatoes in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain the water, cool the potatoes briefly and cut them into thin slices. Set aside.

2) While boiling the baby potatoes, pan-roast the sausages in a lightly-greased pan. When the sausages are halfway into cooking. Add in the tomatoes (cut side face down). Continue to cook till the sausages are nicely brown and the tomatoes are lightly charred at the edge. Set aside and keep warm.

3) Add about 1 tbsp oil in the pan (I'm using a Happycall Pan which has a non-stick coating). Stir fry the chopped onions till translucent. Add in the sliced potatoes from step 1 and cook for another minute before adding in the chopped garlic. Stir well to combine.

4) Meanwhile, mix together the egg, milk, sour cream, chopped spring onion (reserved a little for garnishing) and 1/3 of the shredded cheese. Stir in salt, pepper, rosemary and paprika. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and spread the mixture evenly over the potatoes. Close the lid and cook over medium-low heat till the egg mixture has set (took around 5 to 8 minutes with a Happycall pan)

5) While the scalloped potatoes are cooking in the pan, lightly blanch the pea shoots in boiling salted water. Set aside. Warm up the baked beans (in microwave or small pot). Clear the table top and get ready to serve the breakfast.

6) When the scalloped potatoes have set, sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese over the top, close lid and turn off the heat. Keep lid on for another 3 minutes. Garnish with chopped spring onion, chopped dill and a pinch of paprika.